Surviving Squalor: Britain's Housing Shame
ITV’s hour-long broadcast Surviving Squalor: Brtiain’s Housing Shame aired on 12th September, 2021. This formed part of a longer, ongoing investigation, lead by political correspondent Daniel Hewitt, which started in late 2020 and was first reported on in late March 2021.
Hewitt’s framing for the investigation emerged in 2017 from his reporting on child poverty in the North West. While houisng conditions had not been a focual point of the 2017 investigation, Hewitt found it was frequently the single ’thing’ leaving families most frustrated, most ill, most angry.
Key focuses of the investigation were Croydon Council’s Regina Road and the Clarion-run Eastfields estate in Merton. The spotlight given to these two sites in particular has held a lasting media attention, as well as for their residents – one of the interviewees being Kwajo Tweneboa.
ITV’s reporting was also a key source for the Department for Levelling Up, Housing, and Communities Committee’s report into the subject, with reporter Daniel Hewitt being the second most referenced witness within it.